Prayer
Prayer, invoked with the #pray extended command, is an action used to communicate with the player's god. The purpose of praying is to ask for help from your god, and as such, it must not be done too often. The player has a prayer timeout, a counter which is raised when praying, and decrements one turn at a time. Only when this counter reaches zero may the player pray safely again (exceptions exist, see below). Thus prayer is usually reserved for one of a few things: saving the player from almost certain doom, performing some action the player cannot yet do (removing cursed items, getting out of walls, etc.), or creating holy water. For those players who like a challenge, avoiding any interaction with gods, altars and other religious concepts in the game will satisfy the atheist conduct. When not to pray Because prayer is usually used in dire situations, it is important to know when prayer will not save you. In fact, praying at the wrong time can hurt you, as your god may become angry enough to strike you with lightning or enact some other punishment. The following conditions make it unsafe to pray: * You are polymorphed into a demon and are attempting to pray to a non-chaotic god. * You are polymorphed into an undead creature and are attempting to pray to a non-chaotic god. (Neutrals have a 90% chance of being able to pray anyway.) * Your alignment record is negative. * Your Luck is negative. * Your god is still angry at you from an earlier event. * Your prayer timeout is not yet zero. (If you are currently suffering from a major problem, it is safe to pray with a timeout as high as 200; if a minor problem, it may be as high as 100.) * You are in Gehennom. * You are standing on another god's altar, and both your alignment record and your Luck are ok. When to pray for help Not all afflictions are equally severe. Gods make a distinction between two groups of problems: minor problems and major problems. Most players do not bother to pray for relief from minor problems, but it is often the solution to a major problem. Major problems: * Turning to stone (thanks to a cockatrice or chickatrice) * Sliming from a green slime * Wearing an amulet of strangulation * Standing in lava * Fatal illness (food poisoning or sickness attack a la Juiblex and Pestilence) * Hunger status "Weak" or worse * HP less than or equal to 1/7 of the maximum, or less than or equal to 5 * Lycanthropy * Being overtaxed or worse as a result of more than 3 points of strength drain (based on your base strength, not counting armor modifiers) pray.c#line147 * Being stuck in a wall without means of escape * Wearing a cursed ring or boots of levitation * Not having use of one's hands pray.c#line163 * Wearing a cursed blindfold Minor problems: * Punishment * Wearing one or more cursed items (other than a ring or boots of levitation or a blindfold) * Blindness * Attribute loss * Having wounded legs (from kicking a wall or heavy object for example) * Being "Hungry" but not worse * Stunning * Confusion * Hallucination Note that if your maximum HP is less than or equal to 5 * (level + 2) and you are praying as a result of low HP, you will also receive 1d5 extra points to your maximum, and then be healed to that new maximum. Other times to pray The other useful purpose of prayer (besides praying for help) is to make holy or unholy water. Praying while standing on an altar on which potions of water were dropped will create (assuming the prayer is successful) these. Which one you get is dependent on your own alignment and that of the altar you are praying on. If you are standing on a coaligned altar, the water will become blessed (holy), and you will also receive the benefit of the prayer. If you are standing on another god's altar, the water will become cursed (unholy). Note that making a water prayer on another god's altar will anger your god, so this should be done with extreme caution. Alignment clues After a prayer is completed, you will receive a message giving you a hint as to your current alignment, in the form of "You feel that is ". How your god decides what to grant :This section has been updated for NetHack 3.4.3. The following table shows how your god decides what you are worthy of receiving during a prayer. This assumes that it is safe to pray. * If your alignment is at least 14, and you have no major or minor problems, you are granted a favor. See "Favors and gifts", below. * If your alignment is less than 4, but still positive, the result is always 1. * If your alignment is 0, there is a chance based on Luck (!rnl(2)) that the result will be 1, otherwise it is 0. * If none of the above apply, your base roll is a number between 1 and Luck + x inclusive, where x'' is:pray.c#line824 ** 4 if you are on an altar in a temple with a priest, ** 3 if you are on an altar not in a temple (or the priest is missing), or ** 2 if you are not on an altar. * If you are not on an altar, the result is capped at 3. In practice, this has the following implications: * If you have zero alignment and no worse than -2 Luck (e.g. an early pacifist or protection racketeer), there is a 50% chance that one major problem will be fixed (higher with Luck above 2). * If your alignment is positive, at least one major problem will be fixed. * If you are not on an altar, a favor will be granted only if you have no problems, and have high alignment. At most one minor problem will be fixed. * The chance of a minor problem ''not being fixed is 2/(Luck+2), assuming you have no major problems. Favors and gifts :This section has been updated for NetHack 3.4.3. If your god decides to grant you a favor, as explained above, the following table is used. The lookup number is generated by 1d((Luck+6)/2).Actually the formula is rn2((Luck + 6)>>1), and the results range from 0 to 7+. ( ) Usually crowning is considered undesirable. Therefore, if you are repeatedly sacrificing and praying, you should try to reduce the chances of this happening. Putting away your luckstone will decrease your Luck to at most 10, reducing (but not eliminating) the possibility of crowning. If you can reduce your Luck to 8 or 9, you are safe from crowning. This can be achieved by breaking a mirror (-2), or by jumping in Sokoban (-1). Be careful not to affect your Luck further by sacrificing too much, or by spending many turns without your luckstone. Unsuccessful prayers Unsuccessful prayers can happen for a variety of reasons, documented above. The following table indicates the result of praying during one of these situations. Note you lose all intrinsic protection if any god smites youminor exception: attempting to convert Astral Plane altars. or your god gets angry. References Category:Religion Category:Extended commands